The Dove and the Eagle
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The Dove and the Eagle The Dove and the Eagle By Roberto Fornasier The Dove and the Eagle, by Roberto Fornasier This book first published 2012 Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2012 by Roberto Fornasier All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-4083-1, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-4083-5 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ................................................................................................ ix Abbreviations ........................................................................................... xxi Part I: Facts Chapter One................................................................................................. 3 1967, The Year of Rumor Chapter Two.............................................................................................. 17 Rumor’s Experience as DC General Secretary Chapter Three............................................................................................ 28 From Leone to Rumor, 1968-1970 Chapter Four.............................................................................................. 48 From One doroteo to Another, 1970-71 Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 57 Minister of Interior, 1972-73 Chapter Six................................................................................................ 63 Rumor Again, 1973 and 1974 Chapter Seven............................................................................................ 67 Minister of Foreign Affairs, 1974-76 Chapter Eight............................................................................................. 72 Out of the Political Scene, 1976-79 vi Table of Contents Part II: Issues Chapter Nine.............................................................................................. 81 Unstable Italian Governments Chapter Ten ............................................................................................... 89 The DC, A Petrified and Disunited Party Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 102 From Riots to Terrorism Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 115 The Nixon and Ford Administrations and the “Red Menace” in Italy An Aside.................................................................................................. 125 The Role of Occult Powers Chapter Thirteen...................................................................................... 132 From Ford to Carter: The PCI Remains an Enemy Chapter Fourteen ..................................................................................... 145 The Fundamental Role of the Church and the Divorce Question A Paradigmatic Case ............................................................................... 153 The ACLI Disobedience Part III: Values Chapter Fifteen ........................................................................................ 163 The American Eagle Chapter Sixteen ....................................................................................... 185 The Italian Dove Chapter Seventeen................................................................................... 193 The Struggle for a Federal Europe Chapter Eighteen ..................................................................................... 208 A Loyal Ally of the United States The Dove and the Eagle vii Chapter Nineteen..................................................................................... 221 A Staunch Anti-Communist Chapter Twenty ....................................................................................... 230 The Economic Crisis of the Seventies Conclusion............................................................................................... 243 Towards the Eighties Sources .................................................................................................... 251 Index of Names........................................................................................ 255 INTRODUCTION “The foundation and source of literary excellence is wisdom”. —Horatius, Ars Poetica1 The Latin poet Horatio wrote, over two millennia ago, that “right knowledge” is at the base of any good writing; a fortiori, writing about a historical topic requires an in-depth investigation of the context and facts that happened, together with an interpretative criterion that explains them. But why should we study this particular historical period, the late Sixties and mid Seventies, and produce research on an area already heavy with publications? The ultimate goal of this research is to analyse the political- diplomatic relations that elapsed between the Italian and American governments, keeping at the centre the figure of Mariano Rumor (1915- 1990). In light of the harsh criticism aimed at the foreign policy of President Richard Nixon and his National Security Adviser, Henry Kissinger, for example by the American neo-Conservatives,2 or the Carter Administration, it is here proposed that much can be learnt from comparing US policy with the experience of Rumor. He embraced a completely different political and philosophical model, based essentially on the Church social teachings. Today, in the post-September 11 world, when the US has sometimes tried to export “democracy” at the tip of the bayonet, it becomes more relevant than ever to explore the thought of people like Rumor, who tried to instil an ethical principle into foreign policy and to make the “leaven of the Gospel” as the basis of their international choices. This work therefore aims to examine the political life of Rumor on a comparative basis, taking into account the moves and judgements of 1 “Scribendi recte sapere est et principium et fons”, or “Good sense, the fountain of the muse`s art”: Quintus Horatius Flaccus, Ars Poetica, in The Odes, Epodes, Satires, and Epistles, London and New York: Frederick Warne&C., 1889, verse 309. 2 Cfr., for example, J. Ehrman, The Rise of Neoconservatorism. Intellectuals and Foreign Affairs, 1945-1994, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995; G. Borgognone, La destra americana. Dall’isolazionismo ai neocons, Rome-Bari: Laterza, 2004. x Introduction Italy’s major ally, the United States of America.3 The purpose is to understand how the Christian Democratic party (DC)–the dominant political structure in Italy–related to its main overseas ally. Therefore, this is not only an analysis of “Italy seen from Washington”, such as the historian Gentiloni Silveri has already written, but a fresco of DC foreign policy towards Washington.4 The years 1968-76 coincided with the apogee of a political leader still little studied by historians, Mariano Rumor, five times Prime Minister, Interior Minister in the darkest moments of terrorism, then, for two years, at the head of the Italian Foreign Office in the last Moro governments. Rumor was hence at the very centre of political events in the Sixties and the Seventies, in the same years when Nixon–and then Gerald Ford–were leading the United States. It seems therefore natural to compare these two figures, Rumor and Nixon, extremely different from any point of view. On one side, was an enigmatic leader, resolute and determined in foreign policy, advised by a leading exponent of the Realist thought, Kissinger–and not coincidentally Machiavelli wrote in the Prince that it was not “of little importance for a prince the appointment of the Ministries, and which ones are good, or not, according to the prudence of the prince”.5 On the other side, was a preacher of mediation, a follower of Catholic thinkers, such as Giuseppe Toniolo (1845-1918) and Jacques Maritain (1882-1973), who grew up within the Italian Catholic Action and the ACLI (Italian Catholic Workers’ Associations). On one side, the indefatigable defenders of an old-style diplomacy aimed to spread America’s power throughout the world. On the other, a forceful and exuberant politician, leading “a rather monkish life”,6 remained attached to his native land, living between Rome and Vicenza, at his old house on the river Bacchiglione. A document of the Italian Communist Party (PCI), drafted in the early Seventies, even while it considered Rumor an enemy, vividly described him as a politician gifted 3 It is given as expected, using the words of Gentiloni Silveri, that “the terminological simplification around the expression ‘the United States’ does not fully represents a complex system made up by men, political-diplomatic responsibilities and different bodies which compose–not always in harmony and in coherence–the decisional process of the following administrations”: U. Gentiloni Silveri, Fanfani visto da Washington, in A. Giovagnoli - L. Tosi (edited by), Amintore Fanfani e la politica estera italiana, Venice: Marsilio, 2010, p. 112. 4 U. Gentiloni Silveri, L’Italia sospesa. La crisi degli anni Settanta vista da Washington, Turin: Einaudi, 2009. 5 N. Machiavelli, Il principe, Rome: Newton, 1995, § XXII. 6 JPL, National security File - Country File, Italy, b. 198, “Profile of M. Rumor”, October 1967.